“I take the backpack. I open the book. I close the notebook. Watch me. What are you doing? Excuse me. Are you American?”

French phrases are rolling over and over in my head as I try to prepare for both moving to France and teaching a language I don’t know for homeschool.

Isn’t it comical how little we know God’s ultimate plans for our life? Fifteen years ago, I was rooming with a girl who dreamed and desired wholeheartedly to be a missionary in France. She is a gifted person with languages and loved making up her own languages and studying elfin languages in her spare time. She listened to French and Welsh rock bands. She wrote stories that she would translate into gaelic languages.

Meanwhile, I had grown skeptical of any sort of “calling” to missions, after being taught in church that there was no such thing as a “call to missions,” only to the pastorate. In a missions-focused college, being openly skeptical of a missionary’s calling didn’t exactly make me popular. (But then again, during that phase of life I regrettably wasn’t a very kind or gracious person, so I don’t think I can blame my lack of popularity solely on my differing viewpoints. It’s a marvel that Michael married me at all!) I *knew* that I wasn’t meant to be a missionary. At least, not overseas. Camping ministry? Sure, why not! Fifteen years later, the friend that I lived with has given up her dream of being a missionary for now. And I’m on my way to be a missionary in France with a firm sense that God is calling our family there.

Had I only known then where I would be today, I would have used my time so much more wisely than I did. I could have spent 15 years learning French and branching out into other languages.

Yet, here I sit. I cannot change the past, but only thank God for the formative years he’s been gracious enough to give me. I take heart from stories in the Old Testament, where it took people years and decades of waiting until God finally used them. Those years may have seemed long or purposeless, but God was waiting for the right time.

And He’s waiting for the right time for you, too. He has a definite plan and a purpose for your life. I teach this to my kids every single day: “God has something special planned for you to do for Him. Won’t it be exciting to find out what that is?” Take heart; if you’re in a season of waiting, there is purpose and a plan in your wait. If you’re gearing up for action, you have been prepared for such a time as this. The God who is the author and perfecter of your faith will walk with you.

A few weeks ago, I took the older two boys to our public library, thinking it would be a great time for them to get away from the younger two. It’s become difficult to bring all four of the kids to the library at the same time unless Michael’s available to tag-team.

On the way back to our car after stocking up on a lot of good reads, we encountered a man, in a compromised mental state, likely due to drugs, doing some very inappropriate things with his body against a window. This man called out and wanted to talk to the boys. They couldn’t understand him because of his garbled speech and were uncomfortable with how he made them feel. As we physically could not go anywhere but by him, I held the boys’ hands and walked by.

“Help them enjoy this age. Kids grow up too quickly. My own son is 20 now, and I’m going to be a grandpa.”

I replied congratulations, and walked the boys onward to the car.

They had many questions for me, as they couldn’t understand the man’s speech or why he doing the things he was doing. I explained that sometimes when people are scared or sad or angry they put bad drugs into their bodies so that they forget what is making them scared or angry, but that sometimes those bad drugs made people do things that they wouldn’t normally do. I went on to explain the dangers of drugs in age-appropriate terms.

Our second oldest has had some followup questions and mentions the situation every time we pass that particular spot.

Tonight, he had a nightmare about “the yucky bad drug man.”

He fell asleep in my arms again after crying about this man. This is our sensitive son. He’s the one who used to want to be an ant doctor to fix the broken ants. God has given him such a capacity for love and compassion. And he wanted to know if there would be people who used bad drugs in France.

And I had to tell him the truth.

Yes.

We’re going to be working with people who are broken and bruised and have faced tremendous horrors repeatedly. People who have endured despite atrocious and formidable circumstances. And yes. Many people will have unhealthy coping mechanisms. And it pains me that I can’t keep those truths from my kids.

When we went to missionary training a few weeks ago, I came into a more clear understanding of my role as a missionary and as a wife and mother as we move our family to France. My job is to provide a life-giving home, a place of joy and safety and beauty, so that our home will be a refuge for our family as we walk in very saddening and dark places. God has uniquely gifted me with a passion for beauty and life and light in the little things, and I can see now how perfectly my personality fits in this plan of His.

So yes, sir. I will help my kids enjoy this age. I will do my best. Thank you for offering me that reminder, painful as it is. We pray for you, that you will find peace and restoration.

I’ve really been attempting to lighten up some of the past few weeks. Some of my standards are impossibly high. I’m an idealist. I’m aware of it. And sometimes I hold my standards more closely than I ought. I’ve been fighting against pharisaical behavior—adding in “ought to’s” and assigning virtue to things that have absolutely no moral swayings.

So this week the “lightening up” process has been computer games. Our near 2nd grader has never clicked a mouse on a computer before. In his entire life, he’s played maybe 20 minutes of an educational iPad game before I deleted it, because it was frankly worthless. But as I evaluated this next school year, I want my child to begin to be familiar with typing and technology. So I talked to my husband about loosening the reigns.

Michael’s parents had graciously given us two old laptops last year when I thought I was ready to allow Million to begin. But I wasn’t ready at the time, and Michael was going to France, and we were adopting, and things were just up in the air. Now I’m ready.

So this week, Michael and I decided it was time to order some parts to enhance the functionality of the two laptops. Michael set up the laptops so Million can’t access the internet or really do anything except for click certain desktop icons that lead him into software programs that I’ve preselected.

Today, Million played 20 minutes of a typing instruction game.

I was feeling pretty good about how loosely I was holding onto this whole “my kid is interacting with technology” issue this morning when I went grocery shopping. So proud of myself, that I thought to myself, “Hey! The kids have never experienced processed cheese nachos before. They’ve never tasted the Velveeta devilish mess. What would it hurt them to experience this quintessential American stuff before we leave the country? Can I loosen the grip on yet another standard? Would it hurt that badly?”

So that made its way into the grocery cart.

After nachos for supper, I remembered why my kids have never experienced it before.

It hurts. Badly.

Heartburn.

That is the result of lightening up in life. All you get is a WHOLE lot of heartburn.

Of course, tonight’s Wednesday night, and my oldest child is particularly diligent about requesting prayer for any perceived maladies that I have. He’s prayed for my hiccups. He’s told his teachers that I’ve been sick when he heard me clearing my throat. So I’m basically 103% sure that tonight, every single child in his class is going to be praying for the heartburn that his mother acquired by trying to loosen up in life a little bit.

Today, as I hurriedly put on my daily bare minimum face of blush and mascara to ready myself for ladies Bible study, he said to me in passing, “I hope the other ladies don’t think that you’re un-pretty, Mom.”

Shocked, I asked him to repeat himself.

Un-pretty.

My nearly 5-year-old doesn’t even know a negative adjective about physical appearance, but still he manages to catch the drift that society places value on appearances.

I leaned into him, and I said “Well, sweetie, does Daddy think that I’m pretty? And do you think that I’m pretty?”

Yes.

“Then that’s all I care about. I have much more to do than to wonder whether or not ladies think that I’m un-pretty or not. God made me, and He thinks I’m special.”

He was satisfied with that answer, happy in his mom’s confidence.

But it’s tumbling around in my soul.

What am I teaching my kids about beauty?

I’m a lover of beauty, by nature. And God has gifted me with the ability to find beauty in the minute moments of everyday life. This is a special gift because of the field that we’re knowingly stepping into. I didn’t realize how perfectly God had placed me in marriage and in my personality, until we were instructed to find joy and beauty in our daily lives as missionaries as antidotes for all of the pain and suffering and trauma we’ll be surrounded with.

“I can do that!” my heart sang. “I can find the goodness of God! I can see the beautiful! I can glory in a flower, in the smell of the forest, in the way foods taste. God is good because God created wonder and texture and colour and sound.”

But, still, I find myself perplexed that my near-school-age child has learned that people in our society value appearance over character. That he believes (rightly so) that Christian women judge each other on appearance. Maybe I’m just too much of a Pollyanna to have predicted this moment in time, but it was a striking realization for me, so I thought I would write it down.

How have you navigated teaching your children about healthy self-image, identity, and appearances? Have you struggled with this yourself?